Thomas hesitated for a moment. Only one.
Then duty called, and he lifted the knife to Stanley’s throat. If he cut just right, Stanley wouldn’t make a sound; Thomas’s life wouldn’t drain out of him at the sound of his best friend’s pain and surprise.
Duty called.
He slashed.
* * *
Thomas moved fast. He didn’t have time to think or speak.
Stanley collapsed to the rocky ground, limp. Surprise and pain registered in his eyes before the light completely left them. But there was no hatred and no anger. Just surprise and pain. Thomas would never forget that expression. Not ever.
He rolled the dog over. Ignoring the blood gushing from the gash in Stanley’s neck, he took the knife and ran it along the dog’s belly, opening up the body. The acrid smell hit Thomas like a fist, but he reached inside, grasping for intestines.
He didn’t have time to think about it or answer Miss Sadie’s and Clara May’s questions. He just had to do it.
He fumbled through slimy objects for several moments, until he found what he wanted. Gripping hard, he pulled and brought his hand out of the body, intestines in tow.
His stomach reeled at the stench and sight of the slick, purple-brown tube gripped in his hand. But he couldn’t do anything about it. He extended his hand up so that the loop of intestines came out of the body with a squish. Wanting this part of the spell to be over, he swung his blade at the intestines. He sliced clean through one end of the loop with one slash, but it took two swipes to cut the second end.
He turned back to Miss Sadie. She stood there, her mouth agape as she looked at him. To his left, up past the altar and his brothers, the zombies approached. They were about fifty yards off. Charles’s rifle went off.
Franky started to wail. As Thomas stepped away from Stanley, Franky threw his gun down, ran to Stanley's side, and knelt next to the dog. He put his arms around Stanley and clutched him close, and rocked back and forth.
Thomas wished he had time for that.
Trailing the intestines behind him, he pushed past Miss Sadie and returned to his cloth. It lay in a crumpled pile. He knelt by it, put the intestines down, and fixed the shape of the cloth. It took only a few moments. How many times had he done this very thing back when he was just a child of perhaps four or five? Memories flooded through him of Mama standing above him, correcting his shape, making sure it was just right.
In a few seconds, he had the shape.
Another gunshot rang out.
“We’ve only got a few shots left!” Charles shouted.
Papa said, “Why did you kill Stanley?”
Thomas ignored them and grabbed the guts. Careful not to disrupt the shape of the cloth, he wrapped the guts around the cloth, creating a second concentric outline of Sanctuary.
He took the bumblebee out of his pocket. It was his, this time, not Mama’s; only one wing had ever broken and been glued back on. He placed it near the right side of the shape, in the approximate location of Angel’s Landing within the country. He couldn’t be certain that it was in the exact right spot, but it was close enough.
He knelt there, looking at his handiwork. It looked right.
“Fire,” he said. “I need fire. I need to set the cloth on fire.”
But he had nothing to set a fire with.
“Thomas,” Miss Sadie said. She knelt across from him.
“Fire,” Thomas said. “I need fire.”
“Thomas!” she said.
She reached out across the shape to him. She grabbed one of his hands.
That warm touch jolted him. He looked up at her.
Her eyes bored into him. “You don’t have to do this.”
“What?” he said.
“You don’t have to cast this spell.”
He stared at her, not understanding.
“Listen, I can finally read you. I saw it in the moment you killed Stanley.”
Was she trying to talk him out of casting the spell? Why would she do that? His doubts of her returned. Had she done all of this just to learn the spell? She'd almost gotten all of it, by now.
“Obligation,” she said. “You feel obligated to do this.”
“I’m not obligated. What choice do I have but to do it?”
“Exactly. What choice have you ever had? In anything?”
He stared at her, and suddenly he understood.
He did not have to cast the spell.
Perhaps in the way that Mr. Milne knew I was the one to cast the barrier spell that first time, I always knew that Thomas was the person who would take my place in that task. I raised him to that end. My poor, poor Thomas.
Chapter 34: Pokes in the soul
He didn’t have to cast the spell. He didn’t have to do it.
All his life, he’d done everything he was supposed to do, because it was his duty, his responsibility. Though he loved farming, he didn’t tend to the farm because he wanted to, but because he was supposed to. Though he loved Franky, he never took care of Franky because he wanted to, but because that’s what you did: you took care of your brother. Every day of his life had been shaped by that duty instilled in him by Mama, and that was why he hated it so much. He worked to support those around him because it was the right thing to do, his responsibility. Not because he’d made the choice or because he wanted to do it. The choices had always been made for him.
That was why he hated it all, why he wanted to get away and certainly not get married to Miss Wendy. He wanted the freedom to make his own choices, to shape his own life. He didn’t want it shaped by duty.
“I don’t have to do this?” he said to Miss Sadie.
She still gripped his hand. “No. You have a choice. You’ve always had a choice. You just haven’t known it.”
He didn’t have to cast this spell. What did it mean if he did cast it?
He would become Mama. For nineteen years she’d cast this spell, protected the people. She’d fulfilled that duty, and had prepared him to assume it for her when she died.
Don’t listen to her. Don’t let her fool you. You have no choice. You must do this thing.
But he had a choice. He didn’t have to assume that responsibility. It was a choice.
“I wish you’d told me this before I killed Stanley.”
“I didn’t know until just now,” she said. “But everything suddenly became clear. You know why you hate your family and everyone around you? Because you only serve them out of obligation. Not out of love or because you made the choice.”
“I do love them, though. Isn’t that enough?”
“You tell me. Is it enough?”
Guilt hit him. Obligation wasn’t enough. That was why he’d planned on leaving them. That was why he’d wanted Franky to live at the hatchery, and Clara May to get married—so he could leave them. So he could finally make his own choice.
“If you cast this spell, do it by your own choice, because you want to, not because you have the obligation to do it.”
He stared at her, and gripped her hand.
Did he really have a choice? If he didn’t do it, the zombies would kill them all—except for Miss Sadie, but they would take her back to Moab; that seemed worse than death, to her. But if he did it, they would probably live and he would have to spend the rest of his life casting the spell, just like Mama had.
Was it better to die now, or to live the rest of his life as a slave to his obligations?
Only, there was a slight difference. Slight, but profound now that she had pointed it out to him.
He did have a choice. And if he made the choice to cast the spell, he assumed that responsibility of his own free will.
Miraculously, the idea did not unsettle him. He didn’t mind assuming the responsibility by choice, though the thought of having it forced on him pricked his very soul.
Such a small difference. Yet so profound. It changed his view of his entire life, his family, and everything around him.
Did he want the responsibili
ty? Could he willingly accept the obligation?
He looked at her for several seconds, weighing the options.
* * *
“Fire,” he said. “I need fire to cast the spell.
She nodded. “You’re certain?”
He set his jaw. “Get your flint and steel. Set that cloth on fire.”
She grinned, released his hand, and reached for the pouch at her side. In a moment, she withdrew her flint and steel, and a handful of the shredded bark.
Another shot rang out.
“Only one left!” Charles said.
The zombies had come within twenty-five yards. Thomas didn’t know why they just didn’t come. One shot wouldn’t do anything against them.
Miss Sadie reached down with her flint and steel, but before she could strike, something occurred to Thomas and he grabbed her hand.
“What’s going to happen to you?” he said. “When I cast this spell, what if it affects you?”
She looked down and away, over to Mr. Milne who still stared at nothing.
“I’ve made my choices. I can live with them.”
Thomas stared at her hard. He would have stared long, but they didn’t have the time. Although—he did have one option.
He released her hand, extended one finger, and with a flick of his wrist pushed the cloth and guts inward on the shape, essentially carving a wedge out of the right edge, over toward the bumblebee.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Set it on fire,” he said.
The last shot rang out.
She bent and struck the knife against the flint. Sparks flew. Thomas held his breath. Sometimes it took multiple strikes for fire to catch.
“Kill all of them except for Miss Sadie!” Brady called from behind the crowd of zombies.
The sparks caught on the shredded bark. They burst into flames. The cloth followed, and the fire began to spread around the border. The entire thing needed to be on fire before he could begin the spell.
“Amazing,” Thomas said, “how you can set things on fire.”
She smiled. “The Lich Mayor wants me to get the gift of foresight. But I want the gift of fire.”
Then she stood and took a step toward the edge of the cliff. For a moment, Thomas thought she would jump. But she didn’t. She looked back at the zombies and Brady.
“Come any closer and I’ll jump!” she shouted.
Thomas didn’t have a chance to see how their enemies reacted, for the fire finished spreading around the cloth border. The time to speak the spell's words had come.
* * *
Everything in the world disappeared except for Thomas, the wind, and that hidden place inside him where he kept his well of second-life days. The zombies vanished. His family faded into oblivion. Miss Sadie disappeared.
He didn’t feel the wind on his face or skin, although he heard it in his ears. More than that, he felt it in his soul, a breeze that at first tickled that nameless, formless place inside him. Then the breeze skimmed across the top of the well, catching up the liquid light in wisps and tendrils, almost like a wind carrying smoke. But as this resplendent light lifted on the wind and floated into oblivion, it pained Thomas. Like someone ripped hair out of every inch of his body all at once.
From the couplets Mama had taught him, Thomas knew the words of the spell, and he spoke them. As he did, the wind grew in power, pulling more of the liquid light out of him. The pain of his flesh increased, penetrated through his skin, into muscles.
The words were simple and few.
“I now sacrifice my second-life days, a year for a mile, and a day for a day, to erect a barrier against the undead and those who create them.”
Sanctuary stretched thirty miles tall and sixty wide. Likewise, his shape was twice as wide as it was tall: he only needed to extend the barrier in a north-south direction thirty miles. Proportionately, it would extend in an east-west direction twice that distance.
“I sacrifice thirty years of second-life days for the casting of this spell, the creation of this barrier.”
How long should he establish the barrier for? A day for a day. He was already using thirty years—an enormous amount. How much more could he handle?
“I sacrifice a year to create the duration of the barrier. Thus I commit the second-life days of my soul.”
The wind howled in his ears. It buffeted his soul. The liquid light began to come off of the well at a faster pace. It transformed from mere wisps to a steady flow. It streaked upward into a black abyss in steady streams, about as thick as his arms. The level of the well, despite the depleting of its liquid light, always stayed high, always near the top of the stones.
Mama was right. She was right.
Every muscle in his body tightened at the physical pain. It felt like the spiritual wind would tear his soul to shreds.
“The shape of the fiery cloth and the guts of Stanley, a dog, represent the shape of the barrier. The bumblebee represents me within that barrier.”
The streams of liquid light grew thicker. Several of them combined to form a single pillar that rode the howling wind at a steep angle into the blackness.
“Let the fire on the cloth, against the flesh of the dog, represent the burning of undead flesh. Let the bumblebee represent the sound within the heads of those who have had part in raising undead.”
The wind became deafening as it rushed across the top of the well. It became so powerful that the stray strands of liquid light, thin and thick, combined into the pillar so that a single shining flow—a ribbon of yellow—stretched upward into oblivion. The pain in Thomas’s body reached a plateau.
In fact, it was as if everything had reached their thresholds. His ability to feel pain. His ability to hear. The ability of his soul to send off the second-life days. They’d all reached their limits. But it didn’t really matter to him. He couldn’t really think about it. He just knew there was wind in his head and across his soul, and that it really, really hurt.
“Thus,” he said, “I sacrifice my second-life days.”
With those final words, he finished the spell. He opened his eyes. Inside him, the light continued to flow up out of the well, pulled by the wind, but outside him, the spell began to work its magic.
* * *
A zombie leaped at Eli. Naturally, the one person who wasn’t a Baker stood at the front of the group. He would’ve died first had Thomas’s spell not taken effect.
As the zombie held out its arms to entangle Eli, it burst into a pillar of flame. One instant, it leaped through the air, mouth agape, fingers extended like claws, empty eyes wide—and the next, it disappeared into a puff of fire. Thomas couldn’t hear it over the ethereal wind, but imagined it would’ve sounded like a large match suddenly lighting and extinguishing.
Eli, who’d braced himself for the impact, opened his eyes in surprise as the zombie didn’t hit him. Instead, a cloud of ash floated over him.
Thomas felt it. He felt the burning of the zombie somewhere inside him—even through the pain of those second-life days lifting off of his soul. It felt like someone poked his insides with a finger.
As the barrier extended out further, the other zombies coming across the landing also burst into flames. It started at those closest to Eli, and extended westward through the zombie ranks. Each in turn exploded into a fire that consumed their flesh in an instant, turning them into nothing more than a cloud of ash. It took no more than four seconds before the landing stood free and clear of zombies. A dusting of ash began to settle over the rocks and tenacious bushes.
Thomas felt each incineration like a poke. Though many came at once, he felt them separately.
The second-life days continued to flow out of him.
Around him, people began to celebrate. They lifted their hands in triumph, and began to jump up and down or dance. Their mouths opened in shouts of joy, but he didn’t hear them. He only heard the wind.
You see. I told you. You should have trusted me more often.
He fell forward, slamming his open hands into the center of his shape. He vaguely felt the fire of the cloth on his knees and arms, but didn’t care—for it felt like nothing next to the agony of the second-life days flowing out of him. His head felt light from the pain.
Miss Sadie knelt across from him, staring with concern.
He began to feel other pokes in his soul as the barrier extended out toward Gateway. Just a few pokes at first, but then dozens more. Then scores. Then hundreds. All over in his soul, quick and blunt, then gone. He felt hundreds and hundreds of them in such rapid succession that he knew he’d reached the thickest ranks of the Moabite army of zombies in Gateway or closer.
They all burst into flames and burned to ash in an instant.
After a few seconds, the poking stopped, but the flow of liquid light continued out of the well, upward, twisting on the wind in his soul. He could hear nothing but that torrent, and could feel nothing but the pain.
His arms gave out. His face hit the stone and his hands splayed out to his sides, destroying the shape of the cloth and guts. He panicked, fearing the accident might disrupt the spell. But it didn’t. His second-life days flowed away.
As the spell continued for another dozen seconds, he felt a few random pokes in his soul. He lay there with his face against the cold stone, sweating, breathing hard. Miss Sadie knelt over him, with her hand on his back. He could barely feel it from all the other sensations. Straining his eyes to the very corner of their sockets, he could look up and see her face. Her lips moved in reassurance, in comforting sounds he could not hear.
Until, over a few seconds, the wind died with a long sucking sound and sudden thunderclap.
I have fulfilled my duty. I am finally done.
The flow of light from the well ended, and the tail of the ribbon of light flitted off into oblivion. The pain faded from his body. He could feel his skin and his muscles again—they all ached. He could actually hear the people around him hooting and hollering.
And other sounds. The sigh of the natural wind. The rustle of tree branches. Franky still crying over Stanley's corpse. Men screaming. Two of them. Wailing is if they endured torture.
Keep Mama Dead Page 31
